don't sell, michelle!

We finally got it together with a couple and their kids for brunch yesterday. Now that we’re steeped to our nostrils in all things kid-o-phile, our social lives have become a swampy series of reschedulings and postponements for dinners, brunches, lunches and playdates. So we felt really accomplished to sit together in our friends’ apartment catching up on our real estate conversation and munching toasted bagels with cream cheese and juicy tomatoes from their local farmers’ market while the kids practiced sharing toys.

Afterwards we went to the playground in our friends’ desirable nabe and as I boosted Hamish onto the spider-shaped jungle gym I realized with lightning speed that I was standing across the paint-chipped bug’s abdomen from a movie star. Yes, yours truly, the writer of Star Craving Mad, had the sacred privelege of sharing playground time with a very pregnant L____, who it turns out, has just bought in the neighborhood, which is most auspicious since Heath Ledger has flown the Brooklyn coop for concreter pastures (and supermodels!) in Manhattan. I heard there was a hilarious Times article about everyone and their brother pretending not to give a damn that Heath and Michelle had moved in, and now we’re all going crazy pretending not to give a damn that he’s moved out. I know I was not so secretly devastated to learn of their divorce. Poor Matilda. Poor shmashilda. Poor us, not being privy to star sightings anymore. Please don’t sell, Michelle! Ooh that sounds like a bumper sticker…I did catch them once on the street last year before Michelle gave birth. With skin lumenescent and dewy just like we demand of our stars, Michelle rocked a navy top! And Heath’s womanly wide hips still managed to be studly and carressable in baggy-butted Levis.

So (ahem) now in the playground to my delight was L____, pregnant out to here, all in stretchy black, with her hair piled into a rubberband. Very modest. Very downplayed. Was that for our benefit? So we wouldn't feel so bad around her sparkly famousness? Like an urban soldier, I went to work ignoring her and staring at her simultaneously and the pure distilled conflict of it all had my back in spasms. Did she notice my kids? My outfit? What a cool mom I am? Did she notice my nonchalance at her existence in my universe? That subtle studied wrist-flicking hip swivel that says, “I don’t give a shit what you think, I’m not sure I even recognize you?” Or could she see how dork-frothed with star-struckness I was? Did she cringe in self-protection against the possibility that I might sidle up to her and pat her belly, ask her what gender her fetus is and does she have any names picked out, I won’t tell anyone? Did I gesture too dramatically when I conversed with Bryan? Did I talk too loudly when cajoling Hamish to be brave on the curly slide? Did I brush the sand off Stella’s jeans with too much bravado? Could she tell I was performing for her? Did she give me a standing ovation? No, she didn’t.

Instead, she talked with her friends and shoved her hand down her greasy-haired boyfriend’s four-hundred dollar jeans’ back pocket and squeezed his ass. And her artfully dishevelled beau, who I have to tell you, didn’t strike me as keeper material, I really don’t think my mom would get a good vibe from this guy, grabbed a handful of L___’s armpit, which I thought was so perverted in my newfound curmudgeonly mom-itude. And when their hands commenced exploring each others’ sides and backsides like horrible teenagers, when the boyfriend ran his meaty hands over and over her belly like a genie might fly out of her mouth and grant him three wishes, I concentrated on keeping my jaw shut and continued to stare-but-not-stare, reassuring myself that, oh yeah, this is a recipe for disaster. These two are all over each other which means they’ve obviously known each other for two months tops. It’s all over before the kid turns one. These poor little famous kids. They don’t stand a chance. I’m so lucky I’m not them.

Which got me thinking, part of my fear about leaving Brooklyn is wrapped up in the very real possibility that I will no longer have celebrity sightings. Which is a pathetic reason to stay in Brooklyn, I know, not that we are, but the thought did cross my mind—do I actually believe that I am more validated as a human citizen if I live in close proximity to celebrities? And how sad does that make me? Especially knowing that they live in the most desirable, beautiful neighborhoods in huge lofts and townhouses while I languish in the working class ugly outskirts stressing out about square footage every time I schlep home a twelve-pack of budget brand paper towels. I do believe this on some level, and it’s shamefully comforting that others do too. Maybe by moving I’ll show myself that I don’t care as much as I think I do. Or maybe I’ll just have to start watching TMZ.